I love tennis games!

"Could well end up amongst the best sports games of 2007 - if not THE best."


Playing from the back court with Henman, for instance, is just asking for trouble, but your serving and chip-charge game will have to be nigh-on perfect for his preferred netplay to be of any effect. Likewise, taking a power approach with Hewitt from the middle of the court isn’t advisable; he’s a baseliner, and he’s never better than when he’s opening up the angles and running his opponent ragged from left to right with flat, hard backcourt strokes.

That’s a tactic the left-handed Nadal also favours to great success in real life, albeit with ludicrous amounts of spin; and he’s possibly the one player for whom, in Virtua Tennis 3, the top spin shot will prove most effective. Federer, meanwhile, is masterful in every position, so you’ll have to concentrate hard to get anywhere near him.

These playing approaches appear to ape real life in way that’s frankly a little bit eerie. Such is the speed of play and quality of animation that you’ll often feel like you’re right in the middle of a heated rivalry of the kind common in the game at the moment. Playing a multiplayer singles match as relative novices, there were more than a few times we saw Hewitt controlling a rally against Federer, only to hit a slightly short ball and have the Swiss pounce upon it – whipping a vicious on-the-run crosscourt topspin winner past the Aussie in a way ominously reminiscent of the pair’s past few Grand Slam meetings.

That alone was more than enough to convince us of Virtua Tennis 3’s credentials. It’s that rare type of sports game that’s both arcadey and realistic; immediately enjoyable while decidedly deep. We had a few gripes with the soundtrack – ‘elevator music’ would be an apt description – and some of the grasscourt textures looked a little more like fluffy carpet, but we could overlook that given how downright enjoyable the game proved.

There’s also aspects we didn’t get to see, from the returning Career Mode with its famed Create-a-Player feature, to promised online play and the social brilliance of multiplayer doubles matches. Virtua Tennis 3 is a game we can’t wait to play more of – in fact, if the finished product matches this quality, we think it could well end up amongst the best sports games of 2007 - if not THE best. March can’t come soon enough.